OPFOR
by mfordy24
Summary: Overwatch only has so much reach. Sometimes, to do good, people have to do bad. That was the philosophy of Blackwatch. Following the story of a 4 man Operator Force, or OPFOR, discover the mysterious Blackwatch organisation, and follow the hackers, assassins and criminals seeking a second chance... This Cyberpunk story will have regular updates! I promise!


Chapter 1: Milk Run

Dubai, 12:34 AM, 8th October. Catulan Technology Data Hub

A lot of things can go wrong in a criminal operation. Maybe the guards have changed patrols, or a certain access route was blocked. Maybe the cameras had been updated with IV lenses, or a security inspection had doubled the number of guards on standby. Lots can go wrong. Especially against a corporation like this.

Catulan tech (Or Cat-T for short) was a high profile company, with offices and products around the globe. They were new but big player in the Matrix market. Their wasn't to the standard of Ono Cyber or Neo-Net, but they had brand recognition. They were now the 4th largest tech company in the northern hemisphere, behind Krux Technologik. But the unprecedented 2-year rise from obscure comms manufacturer to worldwide fame had made Catulan, and it's owner Carif Bin Harim, famous.

It also made them a target. Other companies wanted their tech, and beyond anything else, data that could be used against them. Anything like shady business deals or illegal equipment on sites could harm Catulan. Rival companies or stock market monkeys wanted things to swing in their favour. So they came to those who could get you anything you want.

They went by many names. Masterworks, Monsters, Tigers, Runners. But don't be fooled by the fancy names. Every last one was a criminal to the core. They could do anything for the right price. Assassinations, protection, and in this case theft. All were fair game for a Runner. Which was why an anonymous requester, a "Mr Johnson", had sent out a call to steal sensitive data from Catulan's Dubai Data Hub.

Jay Farnight, or Watchd0g on the streets, had done a run like this before. It was a "Milk Run", code for an easy payment. Of course, there are complications. For Jay, the issues came two-fold: First, his normal hacking equipment, a Hellrazor T-85 Cutter, was still in repair after a particularly nasty encounter with some Black Intrusion countermeasures, or IC (Ice), had left the 'Deck fried. The second issue was Catulan had stepped up security after a Runner had tried and failed to steal tech from a transport running through Siberia. Increased guard patrols, and inevitably an improved security system, made this Milk Run taste sour…

But Jay wasn't there to think… He was there to steal. He lowered his binoculars and put them back into a little carry case at his side. Taking a deep breath in, Jay jumped from the 3-story roof into a well-placed pile of garbage, cushioning his fall. He quickly moved to the outer fence of the compound, pulling out a small laser cutter from his satchel.

The tool primed, Jay cut his way through the fence, before taking cover behind some stacked boxes. Going up against the guards would be suicide, so he'd need to rely on a more stealthy approach. Jay lowered his goggles over his eyes. They looked ordinary, but improvements allowing for an AR feed of the Matrix, thermal imaging and even picture in picture capabilities made them a powerful tool for a good Runner.

The thermal imaging allowed Jay to better spot guards, picking when to move from cover to cover, narrowly avoiding a guard who had dropped something behind him while on patrol. Eventually, through patience and timing, Jay reached the side of the Data Hub.

Now to see if Mr Johnson made good on his promise. Jay removed a small key card from his jacket, and held it up to the scanner, praying it wouldn't trigger an alarm. The scanner eventually pinged, and the door's lock clicked open. Jay let out a small gasp of relief and headed inside.

The data centre was large, playing host to hundreds of servers, each tracking and sending data to people on Catulan's Matrix Net. They were hotbeds of information, wielding immense processing power, and holding valuable data. Data Jay needed. To gain access to Catulan's grid, he needed to find the Main Control Terminal, or MCT. Every Matrix service had one, and offered near unlimited access to those with the correct details.

Guards were less present on the inside, but still here. Jay couldn't move around thin corridors without being spotted, so he loaded Plan B. Plan B was an Americana Warhawk 12, a small pistol using 9mm rounds. It wasn't much, but the silencer combined with the small ammo made for a quiet weapon. The bullet wouldn't penetrate the Guard's armour pieces, but a few well-placed shots could drop one on their back.

Jay moved slowly, keeping the pistol up and ready to fire. He was lucky and faced no guards, eventually finding the MCT. He opened the door slowly, noticing the faint blue glow of the console, illuminating the silhouette of the System Security Operator. Or, as they were known in the shadows, the system Spyder.

He was docked into the security system; barely even in enough of a conscious state to recognise Jay had entered the room. Jay still moved slowly, not wanting to trigger security systems before he reached the target. He tapped the small rectangular display on the side of the Cyberdeck the Spyder was jacked into. It was Catulan made, unsurprisingly, and called Ahriman. Catulan named a lot of their equipment after mythical creations or people. The display flicked to life, letting Jay know that the Spyder was "Navid AlJazzera", and he was in cold-sim.

The Matrix can be accessed in 3 ways: Augmented Reality, Cold Virtual Reality, and Hot Virtual Reality. Augmented was the safest, requiring little to no brain activity to use, and the worst you could suffer was some broken tech if someone decided to fuck with you. However, hackers didn't use augmented reality for real jobs. That was in Virtual territory. VR offers a faster reaction speed and more finite control over your equipment. Cold-Sim was the safest form of VR, and catered to the less criminal audience. It cut off anything that could seriously damage the human body, like biofeedback from nasty IC, and if you got pulled from a system, either through a broken deck, getting booted off the net, or manually ripped from your system, the worst you would suffer was a few hours unconscious and a bad headache when you wake up.

But for the hard-core hacker, or the console jockeys who lived on the very edge, there was Hot-Sim. Hot VR removed the filters set out by Cold-Sim. You know how a human uses less than 20% of their brain? Hot-Sim takes the other 80% and turns it into a data processor. You'll react faster and more effectively than anything else on the net, save another Hot-Sim using hacker or Spyder. However, removing the filters also removes basically every safety guard there is. When your kicked from Cold-Sim, you'll wake up with a headache. In Hot-Sim? You won't wake up at all. If Biofeedback hits you, you get hit with a full on 'fuck you!' to the brain. You can find stories of hackers who got too cocky in the matrix and ended up with brain leaking out their ears, or in a permanent coma. One jockey got hit so bad, his brain was across the celling… As such, Hot-Sim is very much illegal, and has to be purchased as a mod on the black market.

Since the Spyder was on Cold-Sim, Jay didn't feel as bad doing his next task. He gripped the datajack, a small spool of wire that directly connected the Deck to the Spyder's brain, and yanked it out. The Spyder yelled out in pain, his body squirming as his brain struggled to comprehend the change. He twitched and shook, still screaming, now muffled by a gag employed by Jay. Eventually, the Spyder gave up resisting, and slipped into unconsciousness. Jay sat down in the seat, and set up his own deck.

The Odo-Sendai Edo 670 was old, but perfectly usable as a backup deck. It was one of the first decks Jay used when he started running, and was the only one he kept. He connected the deck through the control console, and then connected himself to the deck. The chains of wire weren't just metal and charges. To Jay, they were like nerves and blood vessels. They were a part of him, like another organ, made of metal, not flesh. He flicked the switch on the Odo-Sendai, and the world around him disappeared into static and black.

He stood on a plain of grass, moving slowly in a non-existent breeze. He wore a black pinstripe suit, and felt good wearing it. Checking his hands, they were now covered in a brownish fur, meaning his Avatar was fully realised. On the matrix, you could be anybody, within reason. What you looked like was called an Avatar, and Jay's was a personal creation. He had grown up on the stories of gangsters and coppers in the 1920s, and had fallen in love with the idea. His first run in that suit was watching over a more senior hacker. Jay actually saved his life by dropping a pair of Black IC headed to kill the guy. The words after they dropped out of cyberspace still rang in his ears.

"You're one hell of a watchdog, kid!"

The name stuck, and eventually, Jay changed his avatar to suit, exchanging his human appearance for a slightly humanised Doberman. He had been running with it ever since.

Eventually, sparks of light opened up in the deep black sky. Hubs, locations on the Matrix that people could access. The deep yellow sun was the Dubai National Net, or DNN. Every country had a national net that anyone could use. Places like the US had a net for each state. However, they were basic, and corps really ran the Matrix. Those who subscribed to a Corps' matrix Hub got good treatment, even if it meant you had to access it through a piece of tech made by that corp.

The brightness of the light showed how good your connection was to that net. The DNN was bright, but Catulan's personal hub was brighter. Brightest, was the Data Node's secure net, which just so happened to be Jay's target. With a thought, Jay began rising from the ground, floating into the darkness. He moved towards the data hub, until all he could see was blinding light. Suddenly, gravity returned, and Jay began walking further into the light, through a doorway into another world.

The Security Hub was fairly basic in design, with patrolling Scan IC, looking for intruders. Jay moved slowly, watching the movement patterns of the IC, before moving through. Eventually, he saw the access terminal he needed, but it was across a heavily patrolled corridor. To a newb, this would be impossible to pass. But to a hacker like Jay, he had just the tool for the job.

Reaching into a suit pocket, Jay pulled out a cigar and a lighter. In reality, he just called up a program, which could improve aspects of his deck. He lit the cigar, took a deep pull and breathed out, unleashing a massive cloud of grey smoke. The Smokescreen program; clouding IC vision since 2021. Jay rushed through the cloud, stopping just ahead of the file access terminal. Taping the keys on the console, he found the files he was looking for. Data files on employees from Dynacron Science, Tau Milspec, and Volskaya Industries. They were locked, and Jay wouldn't be able to destroy the files if he couldn't break the lock.

He reached into his pocket once more and pulled out a bobby pin, his Lockpick program. He unlocked the Dynacron and Tau files, and eventually forced the Volskaya files to work with him. The last program for this stage of the run was one of Jay's favourite. Reaching into his pocket once more, he pulled out three sticks of dynamite. Data Bombs, which could delete files and cause massive damage to a system. This was to cover his tracks and make finding the source files more difficult for investigators in the future. However, the issue with data bombs was they were loud, and would wake up security upon detonation. He had crept his way in, and needed to break his way out.

He lengthened the fuse for the bombs by 20 seconds, and placed them in the files. He turned away from the console, and summoned 2 Guard Agents to his side. Where security systems had IC, hackers had Agents: Semi-autonomous programs that could act like users. Guard Agents were big, tough and capable of dealing damage in return. Like his Avatar and programs, Jay's agents also had a style choice to them. They were designed to look like massive bulldogs, carrying Tommy guns and wore wife beaters and jeans. They were scary as hell, like any good Guard Agent should be.

Jay pulled out his own Tommy gun, in reality a Data Spike program that could damage IC, and told the Guards to keep him safe and fire on any IC they could see. They both gave a rough nod, and turned their attention to the corridor ahead. The bombs went off and alarms began blaring. Jay began to run.

Black IC poured out of every hole the automated security could make. Jay took short controlled bursts, dropping several as he ran through the twisting corridors and large rooms, Agents at his back. They dropped any IC that got too close, and carried out their directive perfectly. Jay began running faster, spotting the network disconnect point behind a wave of IC. Controlled bursts went out the window, and Jay began firing randomly into the crowd, cutting down swaths of IC as he went. The Agents were close behind, firing like me, before the hall was littered with shattered IC.

More IC were coming from behind, firing their own Data Spikes, Jay and one Agent reached the exit point. The other wasn't so lucky, being cut down by the precision shots of the IC at his back. His body began to disintegrate into glowing blue cubes, until his body hit the ground, flickering away. Jay didn't waste another second and jacked out.

The real world hit Jay like a freight train. He held his head slightly, nursing a headache. He disconnected himself from the Deck and picked it up. It was fizzing slightly with sparks, and was heated so much it nearly burnt Jay's hand through his padded gloves. He shoved the deck back into a carry case and picked up his pistol, before he burst out through the door.

He expected guards across the site on high alert, but there was no one to be seen. Jay knew it meant one thing. The run had gone south, fast. Guards would be waiting on the outside, and high-threat response teams would be fast approaching. The guards might keep him alive for questioning but HTR definitely wouldn't. Still, Jay wasn't just going to hand himself over. He still had plan C.

A good Runner had a plan from A to ZZZ, but a great Runner never needed them. Jay was not a great Runner, but he knew the importance of backup plans. He rushed over to the emergency stairwell and began running up. He sent out a signal to a personal helicopter he had hired for this mission. He didn't want to use it, due to a crippling fear of heights, but needs must.

He reached the roof, and scanned the night sky for the Gyrocopter, eventually seeing the small metal box floating in the air. Jay gave a slightly audible yes as the craft began to land. Jay had been in the matrix for years, but the idea of flying a metal box to safety was beyond him. "How did people trust these things," he thought as he lifted off, "I feel like something's gonna fall off any minute."

Murphy's Law is a wonderful thing ladies and gentlemen. As jay made that thought, he suddenly heard a burst of sparks near the rotor, which suddenly got a lot slower. Jay then realised he was falling quite rapidly. He unclipped himself and threw himself from the craft, shortly before it crashed back onto the roof. Jay hit his head as he landed, and began falling in and out of conscious.

It all happened very fast. He was looking at the Gyrocopter, smoking on the roof. He saw the black helicopter land, and took note of the insignia on the side. It was a wolf skull, with a red blade pointed down the snout. He closed his eyes again, and then saw the barrel of a large, black shotgun pointed at his face, and a voice like gravel laughing.

"Heh heh heh… Finally got you…"

A lot of things can go wrong, Jay thought as a bag was thrown over his head and his body gave up on conscious thought. "A lot of things you can plan for… That wasn't one of them."


End file.
